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Aug 9, 2005 – Veliko Tarnovo, Bulgaria

Morning found us docking at Rousse, the largest port in Bulgaria, and once a Roman port. Here we boarded buses for a long drive to Veliko Tarnovo, the old capital of Bulgaria. We had an excellent tour guide, Polina, who gave us a great deal of background about the changes in the country since the fall of Communism. One thing that stuck was how the peasants dealt with getting their land back. Once all the land was re-privatized, the peasants realized that they could not afford machinery to work the land. They opted to join together into cooperatives where a group could buy the machinery and they could all use them in turn. It also seems that there was a “beautiful Bulgaria” project to clean up and rebuild the country. While the country is very poor – with a much lower standard of living than Serbia, it seems to be pulling itself up by the bootstraps. It appears that the people are coming out of the apathy that is characteristic of post-communist countries. According to Polina, corruption in government runs rampant – which is also characteristic of newly forming (and possibly old formed) governments.

We got to Veliko Tarnovo getting a glimpse of the town built onto the hillside over the gorge, with the white building and red tiled roofs. Very impressive. Their hospitality took us first to a large hotel where we were greeted with coffee and cookies (and multiple tourist shops), and we were able to view the gorge, the hillside houses and a monument commemorating the three kings that ruled from this city (I think). Veliko Tarnovo is build on three hills. The castle is atop one, the big church atop the second. (Does anyone know what is atop the third? I don’t remember – if I ever knew. Perhaps the hotel was on the third.) Anyway, we went to the castle, but only viewed it from outside the gates because a tour would have taken too much time. Then we went to the large, cathedral-like Church. It seems that all the Churches we saw in the Byzantine Rite were covered on the outside with frescos, as well as on the inside. I learned that each iconostasis (the doors/wall that separates the main body of the Church from the sacred altar where only priests may enter) has a very specific order for placement of the icons. They are all very pretty, and the one in Veliko Tarnovo was characteristic. If I remember correctly, Bulgaria’s state does not pay the priests, getting support only from the collection basket. Also, Bulgarian priests (in the Byzantine Rite) not only may be married, they must be married. I wonder how much this has to do with their abundance of priests and the throngs of worshipers in all the Byzantine churches we visited.

Veliko Tarnovo had recently had huge rains, and parts of the lower city were flooded. I was impressed at our bus driver, taking the bus down the detour small roads – roads I wouldn’t like to take a small car down. Anyway, we went to the bottom of the valley were we visited the small Church of St Peter and St Paul which dates back to the 12th century. It was yet another frescoed Church with a lovely, though partially ruined,  interior. Note: to take photographs inside many of the places we went, including the Churches, there is a per person fee. Since I chose not to exchange money, I chose not to take pictures, but was given some by Jack and Nancy.

We arrived back to the boat (late) and were rushed aboard so we could depart – across the river for Romanian border control. The rest of the day was on board, and included a lecture by Michael Murrin: “Ovid in the Danube or the Danube as the Roman Frontier”. I found this lecture very interesting as he discussed Ovid’s exile to a town on the Black Sea and how distant he felt from the Roman Empire, even though the empire extended to the Danube with forts and ports visible today.